Encompassing a broad range of African American voices, from Frederick Douglass to anonymous fugitive slaves, this collection collects eighty-nine exceptional documents that represent the best of the five-volume Black Abolitionist Papers. In these compelling texts African Americans tell their own stories of the struggle to end slavery and claim their rights as American citizens, of the battle against colonization and the "back to Africa" movement, and of their troubled relationship with the federal government.

This five-volume documentary collection--culled from an international archival search that turned up over 14,000 letters, speeches, pamphlets, essays, and newspaper editorials--reveals how black abolitionists represented the core of the antislavery movement. While the first two volumes consider black abolitionists in the British Isles and Canada (the home of some 60,000 black Americans on the eve of the Civil War), the remaining volumes examine the activities and opinions of black abolitionists in the United States from 1830 until the end of the Civil War. In particular, these volumes focus...

The passage of the Fugitive Slave Law, more than any other event in the 1850s, provoked a widespread, emotionally charged reaction among northern blacks. Entire communities responded to the law that threatened free blacks as well as fugitive slaves with arbitrary arrest and enslavement. This volume pays particular attention to black resistance through such community efforts as vigilance committees and the underground railroad.

This five-volume documentary collection--culled from an international archival search that turned up over 14,000 letters, speeches, pamphlets, essays, and...

This five-volume documentary collection--culled from an international archival search that turned up over 14,000 letters, speeches, pamphlets, essays, and newspaper editorials--reveals how black abolitionists represented the core of the antislavery movement. While the first two volumes consider black abolitionists in the British Isles and Canada (the home of some 60,000 black Americans on the eve of the Civil War), the remaining volumes examine the activities and opinions of black abolitionists in the United States from 1830 until the end of the Civil War. In particular, these volumes focus...